Buy your own Equipment to switch?

[Anonymous]

I recently went past a ready mix plant and saw them switching cars with a payloader.(Useing the bucket to push cars.) If its that easy why don't some of these manufacter's buy there own engine and lease the train crew? Do these companies need permission from the railroad to run on the track?Who maintains these off line tracks? Who owns them?
TIM A

[edblysard]

Hi Tim, they do buy their own engines, or as a alternative, they purchase "trackmobiles" a small tractor type machines with street type tires, and drop-down rail wheels. Its good to move a few cars at a time.
As for premission to run on the tracks? If you mean main line, except for the carriers own MOW equipment, you will never see a private companies equipment on the tracks. Its not safe.
And as a added point, most railroads are union shops, here at the Port, the switchmen and engineeres are represented by the UTU. We have a contract with the carrier(PTRA) which gives us exclusive rights to perform certain types of work, which of course includes movement of all railcars, regardless of where they are. So the plants here cant use our rail to switch their cars, due to the contract mentioned, and due to the fact that they would have to follow all of our rules and work regulations, not to mention the fact they would have to comunicate with us, corordinate their movement with ours, ect, you get the point. As long as they stay within their respective plant, on their track, no problems.
As to who owns the track inside the plants? Well, if its just one plant, the tracks are owned by the plant. In a industrial park, either the railroad owns them,(not very often) or the industrial park does. We have certain points, often just a few feet past the switch coming off the main, where our maintaince ends and the plant takes over ownership and maintainance.
Sorta like the city owns the street, you own the driveway.
Ed

[Anonymous]

Tim,
This subject will come up in the next Misc RR Revenue post regarding intraplant switching. Stay tuned. gdc

[wabash1]

the owner of the plant can do his own switching , the thing is if he derails it he has to rerail it or pay to have it done. if he damages it he pays for it. he can even sit the cars out to the main swith ready to go for the railroad to pick it up. all are switches going into plants are protected by a derail as to keep companies from rolling cars out on the main.

[Anonymous]

Targubright, you made a comment, "if it is that easy.....," sure it is easy to switch out a handful of cars in a plant that may have only a few tracks. You have to remember that alot of these outfits use Dr. Seuss switching practices. Very unsafe. To do it safely takes a little thought. Also, switching on a scale any larger that that mentioned does require some skill to do it safely and effeciently. I work in one of the largest terminals in the US, now that is switching!

[Anonymous]

What precautions do railroads take to insure private equipment will not get on the main line?Do the railroads put spiecial locks on the switches of companies that have there own equipment? Are conductor's required to inspect the cars from customers who own there private switchers? If the cars are damaged can the railroad refuse to take them?
TIM A

[Anonymous]

Tim,
Your first question is broad and has several possible answers. First, some privately owned rail cars can go on carrier lines. If they meet the safety and mechanical standards, they can be used in line haul service. If you are referring to industry cars that are not fit for use on carriers' lines, these are so marked (or not marked) so as to be easily identified. Besides, no customer would try to load one their own cars like that. The fines would be staggering and the prospect of not getting caught would be nil. They could even be embargoed jeopardizing all future rail service. No train crew in their right minds take them. If you are referring to cars rolling away, industry leads of this type are protected by derail devices that are set to derail and must be moved from that position when the track is in use.
Your second question, yes railroads use special locks on industrial switches coming from a main or branch line. Each road has a lock of its own so that keys from one road will not work in another's lock. Train service personnel are issued these keys when the enter service and must surrender them when leaving service. Periodically, switch locks are changed and require different keys. Switch keys are a collectors' item for rail enthusiasts. Obviously, you don't want any active keys loose in the public. It does happen though. Switch locks are manually opened and closed by the crews switching at that location. At locations where two or more railroads serve the same industry through the same lead, a special steel bar is rigged so that the serving carriers' locks can be used together and only one has to be unlocked to gain access to the switch mechanism. Also, keep in mind that most switches on the main line such as crossovers, passing sidings, branch lines are mechanical. Their positions can be electrically, pneumatically or mechanically changed by a dispatcher or tower operator. A conductor does visually inspect cars before he moves them. Bearing in mind that train crew are not expected to be mechanical experts, they do have enough experience to notice defects that could be dangerous. In answer to your last question, absolutely! In fact, if there's any doubt in the train crews' mind, they should call the nearest mechanical department and have the cars inspected more thoroughly. Have a good day...gdc

[edblysard]

Hi tim,
As an addendum to gdc's answer, the best protection against capacitive service/private car entering the main is the switch crew pulling the industry. If it isnt on the work order, it dosnt go. Period. As to the second part, locks on switches.. Each road has its own. We here at the port have some what of a captured customer list, only we service them, so only a few of our industries have locks, although all that have their own switch engines have derails. Where our tracks join the UP main, which we have some joint use of, the switch has two locks. Where the switch has a lock loop, designed to have a locks bolt pass thru, therefore preventing the switch handle from being operated, a steel bar, with a hole at each end is inserted, and our lock is in one hole, UP's in the other. Because we share some trackage, we have their key also, and their crews that routinely enter port tracks have one of ours.And part three, if I encounter a damaged car, I report to our dispatcher, (control) and to the trainmaster. This serves two purposes.
One, it protects me from being charged with damaging the car, once I couple up to it, it is my responsibility. Two, it places the burden of repair on the industry, not the port. If we find a damaged car, say three deep in a track with six pulls, after notifying control, we will pull the first two cars, and leave the damaged car, and all those behind it there. This also prompts the industry to not try and place a damaged car in service. A day or two of not being pulled is a really good incentive. Most industries are pertty good about reporting cars they damaged, and as they often do not have the facilities on site to repair the car, they contract with our mechanical dept to do so. Once they have notified us, they are required to place such a car at the end of their pulls, and mark it in such a way as to make it highly visibile to the switch crew, who should have the car listed on their work order as damaged. And as a regular part of our job, we are required to inspect all cars we are about to pull, looking for damage, wheel chocks, loading/unloading hoses attached, walkways left down and attached to tank cars, open doors on bottom dump hoppers, open box car doors. Belive me, those can fall off if left open and unlatched, when you come to a stop, they slide to the end of their rail, snap the keeper off, and kaboom!. The things weigh several hundred pounds, and can crush you, and when they hit the ground it scares the crap out of you. Sounds just like a car wreck ten feet behind you.
Ed

[Anonymous]

When say, a class one railroad delivers cars to a industrial siding that has it's own switcher. Will the class one be required to ask permission to enter the industrial siding? Can the class one train refuse to enter the private track if they feel the tracks are unsafe? Do they have the power to force a privatly switched track owner to fix his track? If class one railroad's do not like the equipment that a private company use's can the class one force the private company to buy better equipment?

[Anonymous]

Will a railroad ask permission to enter an industrial siding. Yes, especially if it is withing the hours that the plant switcher works. It's a coordinated event.
Can a carrier refuse to enter unsafe tracks. Yes, absolutely.
Can a carrier force a industry to repair their tracks. No, but they can embargo the industry until it is safe.
Can a railroad force an industry to buy better or repair current equipment? No, they can refuse to handle those types of cars and again if the cars that are in bad condition(bad ordered...this is a railroad term meaning equipment needing repair) create a safety hazard as agreed to by mechanical departments, embargo the industry.
If a carrier crew were to see what it considered a dangerous piece of equipment to handle it should notify its own mechanical department before doing so. It could be that the defect is not what the crew thought. Such conditions can sometimes be touchy and require agreement between labor organizations, carrier line supervision, carrier labor relations departments and the industry.
It's really hard to quantify a definative response from this post. gdc

[wabash1]

I have heard that the fra has made it manditory that any plant who has thier own switching equipment will blue flag the lead. and i have notice this happening this year at several places we service. the blue flag can only be removed by the plant personel.

[Anonymous]

I've not heard that, but it sounds like a good idea. Blue flags should apply to them like they do to the railroads. Thanks for the info. gdc

[Anonymous]

What does a blue flag mean? What is it used for?

[Anonymous]

A blue flag or light is a indication not to enter a track or move equipment because there may be someone around, between or underneath cars or on the track that could be injured if a train movement were to occur. For safety reasons, blue flags can only be removed by those who placed them ...gdc

[Anonymous]

I recently went by a company that owns its own switcher. In it's siding was parked a Wis. Central constuction train parked there for the week end. Will this private company send Wisconsin Central a bill for parking there?
TIM A

[Anonymous]

Maybe. But it is also possible that the customer leased the construction equipment from WC. Are you familiar with what kind of equipment it was? Was it track equipment such as tampers, ballast regulators, etc.? gdc

[Anonymous]

The Wisconsin Central is replacing and rebuilding some road crossings in the area. It's a crane and some cars that hold track panels. There is also a snow-plow parked on the track next to it.

[wabash1]

Most likley no, when the railroad does this they get to use the switch to store things, if the plant is shut down on weekends there is not a problem but monday morning you can bet the equipment is gone unless arrangments have been made in advace to leave it there with the owner of the plant. over on this end of the railroad our mow folks park things where ever they please. i have never heard anyone complain.

[alangj]

Many (~30) years ago, I worked for a chemical storage company which had its own small "yard" with about 8 tracks used for various tank car storage and filling/emptying operations. All of our own in-house switching was done with our own (ex-Monon) vintage SW1 and a two-man in-house crew from our plant. A neighboring steel-coil-processing company had their lead track branching off ours, just "downstream" (frog-end) of our first switch off the lead to the (then) N&W trackage. That company chose to not have our switch crew service their needs, but rather would pu***heir steel-coil cars around with one of those big-tired heavy duty forklifts that are used for lifting the steel coils. Apparently, all they'd do is get the forklift straddling the track, line up the tip of the fork(s) against the coupler knuckle of the car to be moved, and give it a shove. Several times, their drivers would be a bit too "enthusiastic" and roll the coil car all the way out of their facility and through the (non-safety) switch on our lead track (they apparently never gave any thought of having a person ride the car and be available to work a brakewheel.) When they'd "break" the switch on our lead by running a car through it when it was set against them, our switchcrew would effectively be "pinned down" inside our plant, with minimal lead-track "pulling" room, until such time as that steel company could get someone in to repair the switch mechanism. That also cut all of us off from the rail connection to the "outside world", since we were all at the end of a long single-track spur extending south from the N&W's Calumet yard.
I guess they never wised up, since that became a fairly regular occurrence every couple of months in the 3-1/2 years that I was there. I guess our company never really made a point of asking them to install a derail on their track - don't know why. Musta' gotten pretty expensive for that steel company to have to keep paying for switch repairs every couple of months, too.

Alan